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By Sara Longley

Dec 20, 2001 -- A Loyal Heights man awakens on a Monday morning to find that his house, which he shares with housemates, is defaced with eggs, and toilet paper is strewn through the shrubs and trees in the front yard. A car belonging to one of his housemates has writing drawn in shoe polish on three windows. Pieces of cardboard with various phrases and lewd pictures drawn on them are left tied to a tree and on the car. The man believes all this is the work of his ex-girlfriend, who left an angry message on his answering machine and used several of the same words and phrases. Nobody saw the damage being done, and the man had already erased the message from his machine. Fortunately for him and his housemates, the heavy rain that day prevented any permanent damage to the house or car. He is advised how to obtain an anti-harassment order...

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A silver Nissan car pulls into the drive-through window of a fast-food restaurant on Northgate Way at 5:55 p.m. on a Monday. The driver orders two meals valued at $2.16, and pays with a $20 bill. The manager working at the drive-through window puts the bill in the money checker and discovers it is counterfeit. She confronts the customer, who pays with two singles and some change instead. The customer wants her counterfeit bill back, but the manager keeps it and calls police after the customer departs. She gives the license number of the car to the police, who recognize the number and suspect description from another call they investigated the previous day. The bill is placed into evidence...

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A Wallingford man sees a stranger inside the secured parking garage of his apartment building at 3:30 p.m. on a Monday. The man appears to be forcing entry into a red Toyota. The resident asks the stranger what he is doing, and the man replies that he is attempting to steal the car. The suspect continues talking to the apartment resident briefly, then gets into a dark blue Nissan pickup truck, uses a remote device to open the garage door, and drives away. The apartment resident calls police. They run the Nissan's license number through the computer and discover it is stolen. Damage to the red Toyota is estimated at $200...

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A resident of a sorority house in the University District looks out her window at 2 a.m. on a Monday morning and sees a man wearing a "Phi Gamma Delta" T-shirt standing in a second-floor window of an adjacent fraternity house. The man throws beer bottles and cans through two windows of the sorority house, breaking them. Then he quickly shuts his window, draws the blinds and turns his light off. The witness calls police, and when they arrive she points out the window used by the suspect. The officers visit the fraternity house and contact a resident. After they show him the suspect's window and point out the broken sorority house windows, he agrees to organize an apology and arrange for reparations to be made for the damage...

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A loss prevention officer at a Northgate clothing store observes a young man wearing baggy blue jeans and a blue shirt and blue tennis shoes enter the store at 1:10 p.m. on a Sunday and take the escalator downstairs to the Men's Wear department. The boy in blue goes to a display table that holds several football and basketball jerseys, and puts several into a bag he is carrying. From there, he walks straight out the door without paying for the items. He is detained by the loss prevention officer as he leaves, and police are called. The boy is trespassed from the store premises, read his rights, and transported to the North Precinct. He cooperates and is eventually released after being charged with theft...

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A clerk at a Lake City department store observes a man with a blue truck load up a $50 Christmas tree from the store's outdoor display at 11:20 p.m. on a Saturday night. Then he sees the man drive away. Police are called and make a search of the area, but the suspect and his seasonal contraband are not located...

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A Greenwood woman calls a housekeeping service that she finds in the Seattle Times classifieds. She leaves a message and receives a call back within a few minutes. She sets up an appointment on a Sunday afternoon for the man to clean her house. He arrives late, but seems very eager to please. The woman thinks it is unusual that he "seems a little paranoid about letting her know how honest he is." While the man is working, a friend calls and asks the woman if she wants to go out to walk their dogs. The woman decides to leave the man in her house unattended, and departs at 2:15 p.m. When she returns at 3 p.m., he is gone. She checks her roommate's room and notices some items moved around. Then she sees that two antique cameras are missing. She checks her own room and discovers "numerous" pieces of jewelry gone. She asks her neighbors if they saw the man leave her house, but nobody has seen anything. She calls the suspect's phone number and leaves a message on the machine demanding that he return her belongings. When he doesn't call back, she calls the police. They are able to lift some fingerprints, and the woman is provided with a victim's follow-up form to complete...

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